


What's In A Name

by jaradel



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Implied Slash, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-11
Updated: 2013-08-11
Packaged: 2017-12-23 04:40:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaradel/pseuds/jaradel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John learns something surprising about Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's In A Name

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'ed, all mistakes are mine. Thanks for reading!

          It was a rare, quiet day in 221B. John had the day off from the surgery, and Sherlock was planning to pester Molly at the morgue in the hopes that she would give him more body parts for his experiments. John had exhausted his collection of books and, not feeling like a trip to the bookshop, asked Sherlock if he could look through his eclectic and disorganized collection for something to read.

          “An e-reader would be much more efficient, John. You wouldn’t even have to leave the flat to purchase new books,” Sherlock said, pulling on a pair of trousers and tucking in his shirt while John lay back in their bed, enjoying the reverse strip tease.

          “It’s not about convenience, Sherlock. It’s about the heft of a book in your hands, the cover art, the scent of the paper and ink, the act of turning the pages like you’re unwrapping a gift.”

          “Sentiment – _dull_ ,” Sherlock sneered, sitting on the edge of the bed and tying the laces of his oxfords, but his words lacked their usual bite. He stood up, picked up his suit jacket, and walked around to John’s side of the bed, leaning over to give John a soft kiss. “Feel free to look through my books, then,” he murmured softly. “I can’t promise you’ll find anything that interests you, but what’s mine is yours. Always.”

          John smiled. “Sentiment,” he said as Sherlock straightened. He caught Sherlock’s hand in his and pressed a kiss to the back of it.

          Sherlock returned the smile. “I learned from the best,” he replied, squeezing John’s hand once before walking out to the kitchen. “Don’t know how long I’ll be at the morgue,” he called back to John.

          “Text me if you’re going to miss supper,” John called back, snuggling down in the warm bed that smelled pleasantly of him and Sherlock.

          Two hours later John woke up, revelling in the laziness of a day off. He took his time with his morning ablutions, and indulged in a proper fry-up – eggs, bacon, toast, jam, and a real pot of tea – while reading the morning paper. After he finished the paper and cleaned up from breakfast, he wandered into the sitting room and over to the far set of bookshelves near the window, where Sherlock liked to stand when he played his violin.

          John perused the shelves slowly. Sherlock’s collection was a reflection of the man – seemingly disorganized, varied in subject matter, but with noticeable gaps as well. John noticed, for example, that there were absolutely no science fiction or fantasy novels on the shelves, but there was a broad selection of literary classics (Jane Austen? _Really, Sherlock??_ ), a few volumes of poetry (Sylvia Plath, W. H. Auden, Walt Whitman, and – John couldn’t believe this – Shel Silverstein), and one or two slightly more contemporary novels that looked like their spines had never been cracked; probably bought for a past case. Most of the library contained what one would expect of the consulting detective: a wide selection of anthologies and reference books about crime, human anatomy, weaponry, forensics, computer hacking, geology, botany, and chemistry. None of it was in any order that John could discern; knowing Sherlock, he arranged his library based on the ISBN numbers of each volume or something equally obscure.

          John crouched down to get a better look at the lower shelves, when he spied it stuck between a telephone book from the 1990s and what appeared to be a textbook about soil identification that was printed at a university’s copy center. It had a simple leather cover, and embossed on the spine in gold lettering was the word PHOTOS. His search for reading material forgotten, John pulled out the leather-bound album and took it over to the sofa. The cover creaked when he opened it on his lap; evidently this was something that Sherlock didn’t look at very often, and as his eyes settled on the first page, he could see why.

_Sentiment._

          The black pages of the album held photographs, meticulously affixed with adhesive photo corners, elegantly laid out. The first page was a collection of baby pictures taken in hospital shortly after birth, black-and-white photos, all depicting the same cherubic baby boy.

          A baby boy with _white-blond hair._

          John was wide-eyed with astonishment. The baby’s eyes were open, the colour indistinguishable in greyscale, but there was no mistaking the tiny cupid’s bow of his mouth. John turned the page to find colour photos of the same baby boy, now a few months older, his bright blue eyes open and focused intently on the camera. John wasn’t sure what was more shocking, though – the white-blond hair, or the fact that the child was _smiling_. And not just smiling, but wide, open-mouth grins that lit up his whole face. John continued to turn pages, seeing the little baby grow into a toddler; most pictures were of the child by himself, sometimes with his older, auburn-haired brother; less often with one or both parents. John’s eyes settled on one in particular, a black-and-white photo of the little boy, now about two years old, in his mother’s arms. His mother, who had the same almond-shaped eyes as her son, was smiling broadly, and the little boy in her arms – dressed in a long-sleeve turtleneck and corduroy overalls – was looking up at something out of frame with a happy grin that practically stretched from ear to ear. The little boy looked so relaxed and joyful, his tiny arm resting the collar of his mum’s blouse. John smiled back at the little boy in the photo, still marvelling over the blond hair.

 

          “That’s why they named me Sherlock,” a familiar baritone rumbled from the doorway. John jumped at the unexpected voice and nearly dropped the album, his quick reflexes saving it from a damaging collision with the antique hardwood floor. His head whipped around to the door of the flat to see Sherlock tugging off his gloves and shoving them in his coat pockets.

          “Jesus, Sherlock, you startled me,” John said, sinking back against the sofa and readjusting the album on his lap. Having composed himself, he processed what Sherlock had said. “Wait – what do you mean, that’s why they named you Sherlock?”

          Sherlock came into the flat and shut the door, unwinding his scarf from his neck and hanging it on the hook, followed by his Belstaff. He walked over to the sofa and sat next to John, their legs touching from hips to knees, and pulled the album half into his own lap. “My hair, John. When I was born I had white-blond hair, as you no doubt noticed when you opened the album. I believe the colloquial term is ‘towhead’. As my mother was blonde, she incorrectly assumed that I would stay blond as well. Hence ‘Sherlock’ – which means ‘bright hair’.”

          John gazed at Sherlock, with his riotous mop of dark curls framing his high cheekbones and those piercing pale eyes, and couldn’t help the smile that spread across his own face. “So when did your hair darken?” he asked.

          Sherlock flipped through the album, finding a photo of himself from primary school. The boy in the photo still had blond hair, but it was a deeper gold colour. “I was seven when the colour change was significant enough to be noticeable. The texture started to change as well.” He turned to a page about three-quarters of the way through the album, with pictures of Sherlock in his Harrow uniform. “This was my second year at Harrow, and my hair was almost completely brown and curly by this point.” John was entranced by the photo. The adolescent scowling back at him from the page looked much more like the man he would become, but there was a certain unfinished quality to the boy. Still, there were times when John could see this petulant teenager in the man he loved. He rested his head on Sherlock’s shoulder, and with an exaggerated sigh, Sherlock wrapped his arm around John.

          “You were a cute kid,” John said with a slight giggle.

          “Oh, good Lord,” Sherlock muttered with mock exasperation, but he tightened his arm around John and dropped a kiss in his greying blond hair.

          “So if you were named for your no-longer-blond hair, what’s the story behind Mycroft’s name?

          “It’s actually a surname. My paternal grandmother’s family were the Mycrofts. My father chose Mycroft’s name, my mother chose mine. I think I got the better end of the deal; Mycroft Sherrinford Holmes is quite the mouthful.”

          John grinned; he’d have to remember that the next time Mycroft overstepped the normal bounds of brotherly concern. “And what’s your middle name?”

          “Vernet,” Sherlock replied.

          “Vernet? Your middle name is French?” John asked, looking up at Sherlock.

          Sherlock turned his head fractionally to meet John’s gaze. “Yes, my mother’s family is descended from the Vernet family of painters.”

          “Sherlock Vernet Holmes,” John said, testing how the full name sounded, rolling off his tongue. Sherlock noticeably cringed. “What?”

          “Don’t say my full name, please,” Sherlock muttered. “It reminds me of being a child. I always knew I was in trouble when Mother called me by my full name.”

          John chuckled. “I think all mothers do that. I feel the same way whenever I hear ‘John Hamish Watson.’”

          “Yes, but somehow I doubt you got into quite as much trouble as I did when I was a child.”

          “I’ll concede that.” John pulled the album back into his own lap. “I’d like to look at this some more, if that’s alright with you,” he said.

          Sherlock dropped another kiss on John’s head. “I confess I didn’t think that you would find it, much less be interested in its contents, when I left earlier, but as I said before: what’s mine is yours. I think it’s fair to say there are no more secrets between us, after all this time.”

          John flipped back to the photo of Sherlock and his mum. “No secrets, but still plenty to learn about each other,” he mused.

          “I do believe I could spend a lifetime with you and still not know everything about you,” Sherlock said as John chuckled over another picture of Sherlock from primary school, wearing a button down shirt, short trousers, and sporting a classic bowl cut.

          “I’ll take that as a compliment from a man who is easily bored,” John said, leaning up to press a kiss to Sherlock’s jaw.

          “As well you should.”

          “Conceited git,” John teased good-naturedly, turning another page in the album. “Good thing I plan on staying with you for the rest of my life, then,” he murmured.

          Sherlock sighed contentedly, resting his head against John’s. “And I with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't want to spoil the reveal in the fic by posting this note first. I see a lot of kid!Lock fics that describe a young Sherlock with all the dark, curly hair he has as an adult. While that may very well happen to some kids, I wanted to tie one of the meanings of the name 'Sherlock' in with a phenomenon that both Ben and my uncle share - being born a towhead whose hair eventually darkens and becomes curly. The picture of Ben and his mum just fit perfectly with this story.
> 
> I also did some research on Mycroft's name, and it turns out it is most commonly used as a surname. Sherlock's middle name, Vernet, is a reference to a statement by Holmes in "The Greek Interpreter", when he said that his grandmother was the sister of Vernet, the French artist (it is not clear to which Vernet he was referring, but given an estimation of Holmes' birth year to be 1854, it is likely he was referring to [Horace Vernet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Vernet)).
> 
> Original source of the photo [here](http://dudeufugly.tumblr.com/post/29403538330/cumberbatch-freeman-50-pictures-of-the).


End file.
